Ideology and the limits of self-interest: System justification motivation and conservative advantages in mass politics.

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that political attitudes are driven by self-interest and that poor people heavily favor policies aimed at redistributing wealth. This assumption fails to explain the popularity of economic conservatism and the degree of support for the capitalist system. Such outcomes are typically explained by the suggestion that most poor people believe they will become rich one day. In a representative sample of low-income Americans, we observed that less than one-fourth were optimistic about their economic prospects. Those respondents who believed that they would become rich one day were no more likely to endorse the legitimacy of the system and no more supportive of conservative ideology or the Republican Party, compared to those who did not believe they would become rich. From a system justification perspective, we propose that people are motivated to defend the social systems on which they depend, and this confers a psychological advantage to conservative ideology. Providing ideological support for the status quo serves epistemic motives to reduce uncertainty, existential motives to reduce threat, and relational motives to share reality with members of mainstream society. We summarize evidence from the United States, Argentina, Lebanon, and other countries bearing on these propositions-including a survey administered shortly before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election-and discuss political implications of system justification motivation.

The marketplace of ideology: “Elective affinities” in political psychology and their implications for consumer behavior

“…Marketing research in Singapore and Australia indicated that liberals were more likely than conservatives to lodge formal complaints when they were dissatisfied with consumer goods and services (Keng, Richmond, & Han, 1995;Phau & Baird, 2008). Findings such as these are consistent with the notion that liberals are lower than conservatives in terms of system justification motivation and are more likely to criticize prevailing economic institutions and business practices (e.g., Jost, Blount, Pfeffer, & Hunyady, 2003;Jost, Langer, Badaan, et al, 2017). Following up on this earlier work, Jung et al (2017).…”

“…These findings were conceptually replicated in the context of Argentina, where university students who scored higher on the need for cognitive closure, death anxiety, and the need to share reality were more likely to endorse systemjustifying beliefs and identify themselves as right-wing (vs. left-wing). System justification mediated the effects of epistemic, existential, and relational motives on political orientation and support for conservative President Mauricio Macri (Jost, Langer, Badaan, et al, 2017).…”

“…In terms of motivational concerns, heightened epistemic, existential, and relational needs to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord are positively associated with the endorsement of conservative, system-justifying attitudes and are negatively associated with the endorsement of progressive, system-challenging attitudes. Generally speaking, conservatives are motivated to defend and justify the societal status quo in the name of upholding tradition and hierarchy, whereas liberals are motivated to criticize or challenge the status quo in the name of greater equality (Jost, Langer, Badaan, et al, 2017). These motivational differences are reflected in the prioritization of personal values: whereas conservatives emphasize conformity, security, tradition, and power, liberals emphasize benevolence, universalism, and self-direction.…”

Social Psychological Explanations of Political Inaction: Citizens’ Perspectives in Brazil, Hungary, and the Netherlands

“…In addition to that, criticism of the system is likely to be self-serving in the focus group discussions. If individual (e.g., Hoffarth & Jost, 2017;Jost et al, 2017) or group interests within a specific system (e.g., Sengupta, Osborne, & Sibley, 2014) are more salient, system justification can be less pronounced. This is something that might underlie explanations in the focus group discussions where people argue that they themselves do not participate because the political system is not responsive.…”

Probing the history of social psychology, exploring diversity and views of the social: Publication trends in the European Journal of Social Psychology from 1971 to 2016

“…Examples are system justification and terror management theory, which are 'social' in the sense that they consider social structures as part of the enveloping context of the individual, but involve a motivational level of analysis exploring (what are assumed to be) fixed features of human nature (see Jost et al, 2017). In particular, studies of group and inter-group processes regarding socially relevant issues, such as migration and integration of ethnic minorities, are noticeable.…”